Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.

The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honor or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.

I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!

I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.

No human life, not even the life of a hermit, is possible without a world which directly or indirectly testifies to the presence of other human beings.

Every country has the government it deserves.

The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.

Envy is the basis of democracy.